Manslaughter Arrest in Fatal Main St. Crash

Updated, 10:40 p.m. Saturday, adds police press release with vehicular manslaughter arrest.

Walnut Creek police are investigating a pickup truck-pedestrian accident at 6:15 p.m. Saturday in front of the Marriott hotel on North Main Street in which one pedestrian was killed and a second one received serious injuries.

Arrested Saturday night on suspicion of vehicular manslaughter was Hossein Tabrizi, 53, of Walnut Creek, who was also hospitalized in the crash.

Witnesses said the pickup truck was southbound on North Main Street "before going onto the west sidewalk and striking the two pedestrians," according to a Walnut Creek police news release Saturday night.

Pronounced deceased at the scene was a woman, police said. A second woman was transported to the hospital with serious injuries. Tabrizi, the driver of the red pickup truck, was extricated from the truck by EMS personnel and taken to the hospital with unknown injuries, police said.

The victims' identities are being withheld pending family notification, police said.

The red pickup, southbound on North Main Street, came to rest after the accident on the North Main sidewalk at the Parkside intersection, in front of the Marriott. The truck was wedged between a traffic signal pole and a low concrete retaining wall, which borders the Marriott driveway. Because it was tightly wedged, it took tow trucks a couple of hours to remove the truck. Broken glass was strewn on the sidewalk and street.

The pickup truck had its roof cut off, apparently to extricate the driver after the accident.

Because of the accident investigation, police blocked a quarter-mile stretch of North Main, around the intersection of Parkside Drive, for several hours Saturday evening.

A witness told the Contra Costa Times that after the impact of the accident, a pedestrian "flew into the median."
 
North Main Street between Penniman Way and North California Boulevard was closed.

If you have information about this collision, you are asked to call the Walnut Creek Police Department at (925) 943-5844.